Govts scramble for virus solutions
One by one, more and more countries are reporting cases of the new coronavirus. Governments and doctors on the front lines are scrambling for solutions and everyday life around the globe is being disrupted in a manner that’s not been seen in recent times. The spread of the virus is having an impact around the world. Here are some of the latest developments:
Looking for connections
From California to Italy, France, Germany, Spain and beyond, more cases are popping up in which the source of the virus remains a mystery.
People who weren’t exposed through travel or contact with someone previously infected are testing positive. Health authorities in all these places are working hard to find the original source of infection using what’s called contact tracing, or finding all the people the latest patients were in contact with. In a highly mobile world, that’s increasingly difficult.
Markets dive deeper
US President Donald Trump had reason to worry as stocks tanked further on fears about the virus’ global spread. And not only Trump: all gains built up this year have been wiped out — and more. No region is immune. On Wall Street the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 each fell 4.4 per cent. Britain’s FTSE 100 index slid 3.5 per cent and Japan’s Nikkei ended 2 per cent lower.
It’s not looking much better on Wall Street, where both the Dow Jones industrial average and the broader S&P 500 index are down. A global pandemic that leads to barriers and restrictions has the potential to seriously disrupt the global economy by draining confidence and stalling activity.
A more protracted panic on stock markets could perpetuate the downturn — and that’s bad news in an election year.
Stay away, foreign pilgrims
Saudi Arabia has responded to the fears by banning foreign pilgrims from visiting Islam’s holiest shrines. That will change the face of this year’s annual hajj pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, and disrupt plans for millions of faithful from around the world who come to the kingdom to pray together.
The decision illustrates how tense the situation is across the Gulf region and the wider Middle East as a whole largely as a result of the spike in deaths and infections in Iran. Iran has now seen more virus deaths than anywhere except China, where it first emerged at the end of 2019.
Testing raises tough questions
US health officials are confronting tough questions about testing to intercept the virus. The questions are not just about who, when and how to test for the illness, but how to make sure working test kits get out to the labs that need them.
All those issues apparently came in to play in the treatment of the woman in California, a case officials say may be the first community-spread instance of the disease in the United States. After the case was reported, officials expanded their criteria for who should get tested, and took steps to increase testing.
Beefing up borders
Germany is thinking ahead. To retroactively track down everyone who may have been exposed to an infected individual, the German government is introducing airport landing cards for passengers arriving from the countries hit hardest by the virus.
The procedure started with China but has been expanded to include South Korea, Iran, Japan and Italy.
Elsewhere, authorities are struggling to keep the virus away.
Pakistan halted flights to and from neighbouring Iran. Slovakia is checking cars coming from Austria and everyone on flights into its three airports.
Cyprus has a special problem: the Mediterranean island nation has an internationally recognised state in the south and a selfdeclared Turkish Cypriot state in the north. Authorities in the south are deploying police and health officials at the dividing line.